Page 1 - KINGDOM OF FOOLS - MODULE

SAI International School

Class IX- English

Module-4 (Moments) In the Kingdom of Fools by A.K. Ramanujan

1-Introduction- This story is a Kannada folktale. Folktale is a story which is passed
on from one generation to another. The Kingdom of Fools is an amusing story

describing beautifully the nature and behaviour of foolish people. The title of the

story „In the Kingdom of Fools‟ suggests about a particular state where people are
not so wise or intelligent. In this story, the king, his ministers and his advisers are

fools. That means they are not wise and intelligent. When this kind of people rule the

kingdom, then what all happens has been told in this story. It is taken from the book
„Folk Tales from India‟ written by AK Ramanujan.

2. The Lesson at a Glance

 In the Kingdom of Fools the king and the minister were idiots.

 They decided to change night into day and day into night.
 They made a rule that all the activities to be done in the day should be

performed at night and they should sleep as soon as the sun rises. Anyone
who violated the rule would be punished with death.

 One day a guru and his disciple came to their city. They were amazed at what

they saw. In the evening the town became active.
 They went to buy some groceries and were surprised to know that they could

buy anything for a single duddu.

 The guru realized that it was a city of fools and left. But the disciple remained
there for everything was cheap there.

 One day a thief broke into a rich merchant‟s house. The wall of the house
collapsed and killed the thief.

 The incident was investigated and finally the rich merchant was ordered death
by the king.